Book Review: The Weepers: The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker

The Weepers: The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Publication date: May 2012
Pages: 256
Source: e-book from NetGalley
For: Review
Series: The Weepers, Book 1

Sherry has spent the last three years holed up in an underground bunker with her family. No privacy, no sunshine, nothing but each other. But, when their food begins to run out, Sherry and her dad make the decision to leave and find some. They find an abandoned world, overrun with Weepers, humans infected by the rabies virus and barely human anymore. When they are attacked, Sherry is saved by a hunter, but her father is taken. In order to save him, she must team up with this hunter and the few humans left with him. Will it be enough?

Things I Liked:
I was really intrigued by this story at first.  I love the confined and claustrophobic feeling at the start of the story - her family has been stuck in their underground bunker for 1,139 days and counting.  Then when they decide to leave the bunker, lots of exciting things happen one after another and the action is heart-pounding.  I wished we'd gotten to see more of the side characters and their back stories, as they seemed the most interesting.  Alas, overall this story did not work well for me.

Things I Didn't Like:
I really struggled to want to keep reading.  I thought that despite the action and interesting beginning, the story became very predictable, very much typical of zombie apocalypse stories.  I was sorely disappointed in the instant attraction between girl and boy and how suddenly they were in love and depended on each other.  Perhaps extreme conditions encourage that, but I was unconvinced.  Also, most of the conspiracy details and information about the weepers and what actually happened was lightly passed over or not explained at all.  I was confused and quite simply bored.  I wanted to like it, but dull characters and poorly explained plot left me wanting.

Read-alikes:
Reminded me of Enclave by Ann Aguirre
Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick
Benny Imura series by Jonathan Maberry

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !@
some here and there

mrg-factor:X
mostly implied stuff, nothing on page

v-factor:->->->
rather gory at times, though not unexpected considering it's a zombie book

Overall rating: **

What's your favorite zombie apocalypse book?

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